5 ms·

My colleagues at academia (scientific computing) mostly default to Python 2. Personally I'll switch to Python 3 when approximately over 50% of my colleagues use

by knlje 10y ago

My colleagues at academia (scientific computing) mostly default to Python 2. Personally I'll switch to Python 3 when approximately over 50% of my colleagues use it or when some mind blowing new feature or library is introduced only for Python 3. Makes things simpler this way. Also, I don't currently have enough spare time to port all my code.

rglullis 10y ago
Don't be so scared of porting your code. On my current work, we have a few thousand lines of python (spanning different services and supporting libraries) throughout in ~18 months and we were blocked by pika (a module for communication with AMQP servers). When pika got a python3 compatible version, we ran out of excuses to not use python3, but still my colleague was worried that "it would take too long to port things, and our-code-is-working-so-why-bother". I decided to try it anyway, and it took me less than a lazy Friday afternoon to run 2to3 on all the packages and get the tests to pass. Given that your work is with scientific computing and (presumably?) you have control over the deployment environments, I'd really recommend that you avoid do the switch sooner than later.
- eeZi 10y ago
  Can confirm. Ported our internal stuff and it was much easier and faster than expected.
- dr_zoidberg 10y ago
  > Don't be so scared of porting your code. I stuck with that line, because maybe his colleagues are also waiting for "50% of colleagues using Py3" and it's just a deadlock until some few brave enough starts to port and tip the balance.
scaryclam 10y ago
I find this really surprising as all of the scientific libraries that I know about support python 3. Python 3 also has a load of improvements that would make scientific programming faster. Perhaps instead of thinking about not having spare time to port your code, that you're saving time for future you by not creating more work to port over when you end up really needing that mind blowing new library :)

by knlje 10y ago

rglullis 10y ago

Don't be so scared of porting your code. On my current work, we have a few thousand lines of python (spanning different services and supporting libraries) throughout in ~18 months and we were blocked by pika (a module for communication with AMQP servers). When pika got a python3 compatible version, we ran out of excuses to not use python3, but still my colleague was worried that "it would take too long to port things, and our-code-is-working-so-why-bother". I decided to try it anyway, and it took me less than a lazy Friday afternoon to run 2to3 on all the packages and get the tests to pass. Given that your work is with scientific computing and (presumably?) you have control over the deployment environments, I'd really recommend that you avoid do the switch sooner than later.

eeZi 10y ago
Can confirm. Ported our internal stuff and it was much easier and faster than expected.
dr_zoidberg 10y ago
> Don't be so scared of porting your code. I stuck with that line, because maybe his colleagues are also waiting for "50% of colleagues using Py3" and it's just a deadlock until some few brave enough starts to port and tip the balance.

scaryclam 10y ago

I find this really surprising as all of the scientific libraries that I know about support python 3. Python 3 also has a load of improvements that would make scientific programming faster. Perhaps instead of thinking about not having spare time to port your code, that you're saving time for future you by not creating more work to port over when you end up really needing that mind blowing new library :)